Hell Guard: The Hunt
by ShadowGuard23
Summary: Entities, aliens, and mankind: all strive for one common purpose; destruction. After rejoining Stan and those who saw her through her darkest days, Jodie finds herself hunted once more. Wardens of the other world, the Hell Guard battle what no mortal can. And when a threat of a Passage is discovered, they are set loose, before ruin can be brought to all.
1. A Message In Blood

**A story set after Zoey's ending. A culmination of both Sci-Fi and the Supernatural. Review and let me know how to improve! Thanks!**

* * *

_Code 128-07-01-03. Repeat: Code 128-07-01-03.  
__Confirm: Nature of exposure._  
_[Unrecognised signature]_  
_Oracle Station: Resend data. Repeat: resend nature of exposure._  
_Type 2 Rift. Current status: Sealed._  
_Casualties?_  
_Current data incomplete. Unknown. Priority detected._  
_Nature?_  
_Stormcaller._  
_Resend?_  
_Repeat: Stormcaller._  
_Acknowledged. Suspend all field operations. Repeat: suspend all field operations. Ninth Hell Guard is dispatched. Estimated time to arrival: 6 months. Remove all planetside assets. Continue orbital surveillance. Hold until arrival._

_Transcript log 20387985A-5D: Report to Servonian Bacarus, Master of Voices. Origin: Oracle Station 07-01-03: Sol System._

* * *

_175 days later_

Allowing a rare, natural smile to break past her features, Jodie Holmes passed the bound collection of sheets back to the girl who had brought it to her desk. It was a lovely piece of literature; bound with naval cloth, she had rifled through it several times herself, and saw no reason to dispute the young woman's choice. The newcomer accepted it gratefully, muttering a 'thanks' before hastily turning aside, headed for the doorway and home with a gait that failed to conceal her excitement. Jodie did not mind much; it was rather uplifting to see someone with such an enthusiasm.

It would die in time, she knew. The fact she was taller than the company's most recent customer was had been enough to inform her of the girl's youth. In time, she knew, life would begin, and the luxuries of the past would be cast aside to be stored within the depths of one's memory alone, until their grandeur surpassed the excitement they were worthy of.

It was not a busy day; the first days of the week seldom were, and, spotting only a pair of idle readers several rows to off to the right, Jodie allowed herself to relax, falling back into the embrace of the recliner at her back, as her gaze drifted downwards, to watch the thin pointer on her wrist complete another cycle.

Life in a bookstore was not an outcome she could have predicted early; a rogue CIA asset; a girl tethered to something that should have passed over to the other world long ago; none of it indicated the peaceful life she now led.

But like all things, peace was fleeting, as two men stepped past the glass door.

Jodie did not need a second glance to tell that they unwelcome in her place of work, or rather, anywhere that fell within three miles of her very being. Donned in black suits, they were not the average crowd of casual visitors to a bookstore, and she had learnt enough amongst her years at the Agency to ascertain that each had a concealed firearm on his person. With that in mind, Jodie was understandably tensed as they made their approach to the counter.

'Ms Holmes,' the lead man said. It was not a question, but she decided a try was better than none.

'Karen,' she replied, without a trace of understanding, as she tapped the name tag attached to her shirt, 'Hall.'

'My apologies, then, Ms Hall. Or is it Elizabeth North?'

Despite herself, Jodie rose to her feet, placing her palms on the desk as she angrily leaned forward to confront the newcomer. 'What do you want? I told you people to leave me alone.'

'The CIA has an offer for you, Ms Holmes,' the agent continued, unfazed, 'government payroll, and off the radar.'

'I'm not interested in money,' Jodie snapped, 'I already have what I wanted; a place away from the damn mess you people created.'

'Ms Holmes, you have seen the capabilities of the Infraworld. You know what a passage may cause.'

'So you know what to do then. Pull the plug. Look, I know I'm not going to convince you otherwise, even if two, or three massacres didn't tell you otherwise, so I'll just say it now: he's fucking gone!'

'Ms Holmes...'

'When I closed the Black Sun' she elaborated, her voice rising to a shrill pitch, 'I lost him. Do you hear me? Aiden's gone!'

'I'm sorry,' the agent offered pathetically, as she fell back into her seat, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed at the memory, 'I didn't know.'

'Now,' she emitted in a tiny voice, 'I'm just like you. I'm a person; I can't lift cars with my head or stop an entity any more. And you let them go ahead, we all might as well shoot ourselves now. Because there will be nothing you can do to stop them.'

Though she doubted her words would have any lasting impact, her outburst had finally succeeded in convincing them to leave her alone, if only to return another day, again and again, until the day she either met her stillborn brother as a result of natural causes, or they finally succeeded in unleashing their own damnation.

As the door chimed softly at the men's retreat, Jodie wiped the stream of salty water from her face with an open hand, failing to stifle her emotions, until the black car beyond the store had departed her sight.

Something moved; a wind in a concrete cage, that moved down the spine of her back, and she shuddered at it's cold touch, sorrow quickly turning to only light annoyance.

'Well, what was I supposed to say?' she asked the air, 'That we're still tethered? 'Cause that would just be a one-way ticket back into a lab.'

Nothing audible; only a brief rattle of pottery, as her half filled coffee mug slid across the flat table top, into her open palm.

'Thanks, Aiden.'

* * *

It was nearing dark when she returned home, holding the brown, paper bags of goods close to her chest as she checked her surroundings quickly, before she finally stepped out of the cold. Perhaps it was for fear of the Agency's unheralded arrival, or perhaps even older memory, of the youths that stalked the windswept streets. Her head still ached at the memory, and she quickly marched inside, leaving the thought on the doorstep, to die under the snowfall that would come with the evening, as she ascended the flight of stairs.

The house was, like many of her days themselves, quite. Strangely, Stan was nowhere to be found; Walter had provided a somewhat haphazard explanation, but in truth, he knew little more of Stan's whereabouts than Jodie had, and thus the matter was dropped. Tuesday was in Zoey's room, tending to a toddler's needs, whilst Jimmy simply lounged about on the sofa, flipping the set from channel to channel, until the constant alterations of the differing frequencies finally compelled Walter to remove the control from Jimmy's possession, and they settled with a show neither particularly enjoyed, nor did they particularly dislike.

Jodie, on the other hand, simply seated herself on a convenient chair, reaching out for the book she had studied over the most recent days. Letting out a groan of annoyance at her inability to recall the exact page she had left the narrative, she began to riffle through it's contents, before it slipped from her fingers and landed upon the tabletop before her, open and exposed. The error earned Jodie's ire, until, upon returning it to her hands, she realized it was the same printed scrawlings; the sheet she had searched for.

She did not know if it was the now-unbound spirit's doing, but she accepted the gift regardless, as she allowed her eyes to flicker too and fro, immersing herself in a fiction, away from the truths she had endured.

* * *

Barely half an hour earlier, a black vehicle had pulled up to a barren faced building. Officially, it read 'Halthson's Construction Works', though if it was indeed as it claimed to be, the building would be a derelict one now, for it received little from the service it declared itself to provide.

After being waved through by a lone receptionist, the two men marched on through the dimly lit offices, barren of any true personnel, until they came to the vault. Positioned behind an innocuous door, the unpainted wooden surfaces gave way to a corridor decked in stone and hard concrete, illuminated by fluorescent lights atop the rafters. At the very end of the corridor, two men in unmarked uniforms stood to attention; their weapons held tightly to their chests upon receiving the warning from the lobby, as they moved to intercept the newcomers.

Their brief search of the offered documents and identities found an absence of anomalies, and the pair that had approached an innocuous bookstore earlier in the day were quickly permitted entry into one of the more classified examples of the government's attempts to discern the enigma left behind six months past.

Dozens of experiments lined the corridor's walls; each a separate chamber, divided into a testing facility, and a heavily shielded observation post. If one so wished, a multitude could be examined from the bullet proof screens that provided immediate access to each unit, though neither wished to commit to such, for fear of ending their lives amid ravings of madness. Security, of course, was not taken lightly either, for walls of shifting light blocked their passage repeatedly; one laid upon every intersection; each a means to assure most desirable outcome in the event the worst came to pass. A prototype design produced in the wake of the after action report of two discharged agents, following a raid on a certain installation on the far side of the world, that the USA had officially condemned, alongside the now forgotten murder of a Gemaal Sheik Charrief. True, he had been an elected head of state, but only of a Third World nation, and now the details were all but forgotten. His death had become twisted; distorted, until it became little more than a rallying cry by lesser men, in their bid for something greater for themselves alone, keeping a nation at war. Though they had not know it, Somalia was sitting upon one of the larger Rifts known to the enlightened. The assassination had brought valuable time, and given the United States the prerogative to advance a notion of peace; all the while, allowing the DPA to mine whatever they could out of the cave networks below the desert sands. It had been one of McGrath's finer schemes, and he tucked the file aside into an unmarked folder as his door opened, to admit the two men he had briefed but a day earlier.

'Report.'

'She's uncooperative, sir. Wouldn't take the deal.'

Mcgrath only scoffed. He had never expected the ploy to fly far, but it was a necessary formality to keep the top brass off his back for the contingency they all knew was about to come to pass.

'I never expected it anyway,' he muttered, 'besides, it's easier this way.'

'Sir?' It was the younger agent this time; uncertain in the face of authority, 'There is something you may need to know. Ms Holmes; she's no longer tethered to the entity.'

'She told you that?' A nod, to which the general could only respond with a mordant laugh. 'And you believed that?'

'Sir,' the recruit's senior spoke up, 'I served on the security detail assigned to the girl over ten years ago. I know what I saw, and none of it matched today. Happenings were all tied to her emotions; if it really was still tied to her, we wouldn't be standing here right now, sir.'

'So nothing happened?'

'Nothing out of the ordinary.'

'Thank you gentlemen; you are dismissed.'

Even before the pair had provided a customary salute, and closed the door behind them, Mcgrath's mind was already wandering; contemplating the intriguing turn of events.

_So Jodie Holmes is no longer gifted. No longer a girl who can play God; just a woman. A woman who knows too much of the other side._

His mind resolved, he snatched the phone at his desk, and dialed in a series of digits, before he placed the receiver to his ear, waiting, until the ringtone disintegrated

'Karen, get me a secure connection to Field Ops. Coordinate with local law enforcement; tell them to remove their people from a mile radius, around the residence of a Jodie Holmes; currently listed as Karen E. Hall. And activate assets 6-1 through to 6-5.'

A curt acknowledgement followed, and he killed the line.

* * *

Unfortunately for Jodie Holmes, whose only wish was to complete a simple life of peace without any more drama than was necessary to see her through the ages, she was not only the focus of attention within a secure CIA bunker, though the other location was one that neither she, nor her previous colleagues in the Bureau, could have ever imagined. High out of Earth's atmosphere, aboard a black clad station that continued to orbit the blue planet like a second moon, Guardsman Torus Sevatus ran the final system checks as the Behemoth competed it's docking procedures.

So far, he noted, so good, and he thumbed a metallic switch on the panel before him, extending the cloaked Station's own umbilical cord, until the two respective tubes interlocked, and embraced.

Without much warning, the blast shields mounted on the far side of the hanger abruptly slid aside, to the thunder of steel boots, as the assembled garrison stood to attention in respect for their long anticipated visitor. From a distance at least, however, Venatus failed to impress Sevatus by any grave measure, though he masked the neutrality well, as he stepped back from the console, and interlocked his digits behind his back in the colloquial stance of attention.

'Warden Vigilus Venatus,' Sevatus' commander, Taurus, spoke up at last, as the armored titan strode across the pristine deck, 'welcome to Outcast 07-01-03.'

The words themselves would have held little meaning for the senior Guardsman, and even less for an observing human, if it had not been for the audio regulator that was placed within the Veteran's helmet, providing a practical, if monosyllabic means of translation between the differing dialects that composed the Council.

In all actuality, having halted beside his counterpart stationed aboard the Outcast, Venatus looked like a twig. Unlike Taurus, who would have filled a corridor space even without the grey armored plate that covered each segment of his body, Venatus was a thin, and unsightly figure, standing slightly hunched as he addressed his counterpart. He was undoubtedly tall, easily capable of towering over any of them if he so chose to stand at the full height the Great Father had blessed him with, but if Taurus' arms were tree trunks, Venatus' were the width of insects. He more or less resembled any human they might have plucked off Earth if the need came down for a direct abduction over the long years Sevatus had spent locked up in the observation post seeded by a pioneer team he had already cursed a dozen times to the Storm, and for a while at least, Sevatus found himself wondering how on earth a being such as Sevatus had earned his own company as a Warden of the Ninth Regiment.

'Save the formalities, Veteran.' the Warden's own helmet whispered in the Council's common tongue, though Sevatus noted with some unease that it lacked the metallic quality of his own commander's speech. Rather, it was silky, and serpentine, as if Venatus had a problem overcoming his sibilance. Evidently, the Warden had submerged at least some effort in learning the tongue few ever bothered to develop, what with translation softwares being distributed on a daily basis on the Core Worlds.

It also began to explain the oddities surrounding Venatus, as Sevatus isolated the strange variant of helmet the Hell Guardsman wore; it was too long for a humanoid skull, as if it had been lengthened slightly to accommodate a beak, or a snout. Vigilius Venatus, Warden of the Ninth Hell Guard's Second Company, was a Dracoii. With that assessment, Sevatus withdrew his earlier doubts as to the Guardsman's potential.

The Snakes of the Eternal Night, they were a dangerous breed that had been permitted into the Council, and only on the basis that they were exceptional warriors, that could, usually, be trusted sufficiently to kill the enemy, and the enemy alone.

'You have the data on the Breach?'

'Affirmative,' Taurus responded in the same robotic tone, 'all compiled and awaiting transfer to your vessel.'

'And the Stormcaller?'

A stifled pause, and the Guardsman opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to find the exact words.

'Not...exactly, Warden. Encryption surrounding the subject's files is either too heavy, or they are non-existent. So far, we...'

'...have nothing,' Venatus sighed, 'I understand.'

There was a brief, uncomfortable moment as the two titans stood motionless whilst their minds continued to race without pause, though each was concerned with vastly differing scenarios, until the Dracoii broke the silence.

'Send all the data you have to the _Herald of Judgement_,' the Warden commanded, 'synch all of your planetside relays to our data feeds as well; I want us on the same page as fast as possible. Halus, Pharos?' his words caught the attention of two members of his entourage, and they lifted the cowls adorned upon their heads upon his notice. Seers, Sevatus recognised; the data miners of the Council, schooled in the art of manipulating the digital code, until producing a binary sequence became no more difficult than lifting one's own hand. 'Accelerate the process; get our Seers on cracking down whatever barriers these fellows couldn't bypass on their own. And I want the Second moved to full combat status.'

A series of nods and affirmations responded to his instructions, before the Guardsmen in question marched back down the hollow tube, relaying his directions to the waiting cohorts beyond.

'Is there,' Taurus asked, hardly containing his irritation that his command would soon be usurped by something that was universally known to be an untamed berserker, 'anything else I may provide you with, Warden?'

'A bottle of Narx, and a drop in the attitude.'

For a moment, Sevatus was not quite sure if Taurus was about to throttle Venatus where the proud little upstart stood. Truth be told, he wouldn't have minded watching the Veteran pumble the Warden into the steel floor, but then again, he told himself, the Council rarely made mistakes on the matter of military appointment. Venatus had to have proven himself someplace, though where it was, Sevatus could not tell.

Before he could make up his mind to predict the victor though, he was broken by raucous laughter.

'I'm just messing with you, Taurus,' the Warden sighed, as he turned back towards his own vessel, 'just send me the update once comms are up to speed. And on a serious note; if you happen to find a bottle, you let me know. That's an order.'

And so it was that the Warden departed the Outcast, in return for his own gloomily lit vessel, leaving a rather perplexed Taurus, and an entirely bewildered Sevatus, as they continued to gaze past the observation port, attempting to fathom just what on earth they had borne witness to in the short space of time since their relief had arrived.

Aboard the _Herald_, though, Venatus skulked back to his cabin, the friendly demeanor replaced by the soldier that had warranted a field command, as isolation forged readiness. Carefully, he rechecked his pack, ensuring everything, from the Storm Rifle, to a nearly five kilograms of high explosives in the form of spherical containers set to blow at the removal of a digital pin, was perfectly arranged as he needed it. A week's supply of admittedly frugal rations; a medical trauma kit, a high altitude deployment canopy; the list of oddities went on, as he refolded the extensive set of hardware back into his field pack.

Such was the worst of war he knew, as he kicked himself back into the hard chair that, aside from the steel bed, provided the only comfort he would ever know amid the spartan lifestyle of the Hell Guard, waiting for Taurus' report.

Waiting.

Waiting for the hunt to being. Waiting for the thrill of the moment when the prey reared it's head amidst the grass, and the undeniable satisfaction of a hunter when the hunted finally fell to the ground, stripped of all will to fight any longer.

Kicking the chair about once more, Venatus settled himself against the viewing port, gazing out into the darkness beyond. Waiting.

Waiting for the Storm to unveil it's chosen.


	2. Hunted

'So how was work?'

'What?' Jodie froze like a deer caught before the glaze of furious truck bearing down an ill lit highway, before she forced herself to a state of calmness. 'Oh, it was, uneventful. Weekdays usually are.'

Walter seemed satisfied with the answer, and Jimmy continued with his meal, oblivious to the conversation, but judging from the noticeable break in a typically fluid evening meal, Jodie could not help but suspect the moment had been witnessed, and she felt the cold hand of fear clutching her insides. She had never really told them how she had ended up on the street; never shared with them the operation that had turned her away from the service of faceless governments, always telling herself the time would come to do so, but failing to act until the point of no return had come. Sooner or later, she told herself, they would be at her door, with a warrant for what essentially constituted to a forced conscription, or worse, a bullet with her name stenciled into the lead. Truth be told, there was a vague hope she continued to hold onto. A voice that told her that her admittance into the realm of normalcy would be sufficient to provide her a state of peace, for all the days to come, and as time ticked onward, that voice grew stronger.

Or perhaps, she conceded, it was not even her own. Perhaps Aiden was enjoying a cruel laugh at her expense by feeding hope where none should have been born.

'How about you, Tuesday?'

The red haired mother's lip curled into a slight snarl at the question, before her face softened, and a smile was seen.

'It was alright,' she began, 'at least until a prick walked into the bar, and began mouthing off about his night. I think you might know him, actually.'

'Really?'

'We all do, especially Jodie; heard you gave him a black eye first time you met.'

'Shit, they're out?' Already, Jodie was seeing red. 'I thought they were locked up?'

'Well,' Tuesday sighed, 'it appears at least one of them isn't. Maybe had a loaded father or something. I don't see good behavior helping him out anyways.'

'So,' Jimmy stepped in, finally taking an interest, 'what happened?'

'The little shit was bragging to some friends about beating up some more poor fellows the last night, so I figured he needed a lesson.'

'And did it take?'

'Not too well,' she admitted, laughing at the memory, but it was nonetheless tinged by a hint of regret that nothing more could be done. 'Ames and I really took our time to put together a meal from hell for him; maybe a few days of food poisoning might put him off the street for a bit. Saddest bit is; he was still too engrossed in his tale to taste it. Didn't complain or nothing.'

'Well,' said Jodie, unable to mimic the same regret, 'I don't think he'll be silent when he's on the toilet tonight.'

The rest of the company joined in, adding their own sentiments to the particular band of justice reserved for only the most lowly of humanity. After watching one of their own number beaten to an inch of her own life, sympathy for the volatile youth in question would not be found amongst the apartment's number, and they returned to their meals without a second thought for the matter.

Stan had called earlier to inform them that he would be late, and that he would simply be having dinner from a joint along the way home, and thusly the dinner table was quiet for the most part, leaving Jodie only time to think. Time to ponder on her next step.

She did not want to leave them. Not yet anyways; after all they had done for her, it would be churlish to slip away in the middle of the night, despite what logic told her. Without a goodbye, without an explanation, would be too hard on all of them. She had a life here; one she would have been content with to the end of days, and she cursed the Agency for returning to govern her fate.

And then there was Zoey: the girl was still growing, and as were the happening around them. Her strengths were mild as of now, but Jodie knew they would only grow into something more. Quite quickly, she would become capable of killing every person in the room, although Jodie doubted such would come to pass: the entity she and Aiden had discovered was not a malicious one. Rather, like the spirit once tethered to her own soul, it was a meek one at a young age, although the fires of protection were still present, and that in it's own right was enough to constitute fear. There was no telling when a threat to Zoey could be perceived sufficiently by the entity to warrant lethal force, and until the day Zoey could control her friend, Jodie would not rest easily.

Yet, the voice of self preservation continued to gnaw at her; every moment wasted here was another second given to the Agency, to enact whatever fate they had planned for her; be it a psych ward beside her mother, or a shallow grave. And with every moment she remained, every other life that she cared for remained in the utmost danger.

Unfortunately, fate would soon force her hand yet again, as the lights flickered briefly, snapping her awake from a turbulent ocean of thoughts.

'Is it the power again?' Walter asked, hardly convinced by his own hopes.

'What is it, Aiden?'

Another light flickered; only one this time, at the far end of the room, beside the window to the bitter cold beyond their home. Carefully, Jodie unseated herself, and made her way over to the window sill, peering down into the dark.

'Maybe it was just the lights,' she conceded, for there was nothing in the street below. But as she turned back, the lamp flickered once, then twice more.

_Three signals._ She realized, recalling her agreement with the spirit after their departure from clandestine activities. _Three letters. CIA._

'Walter,' she instructed, fighting down the fear that was grasping at her belly, 'Jimmy, Tuesday, get into Zoey's room, and don't open the door; whatever you hear, keep it shut until Stan gets back, alright?'

'Jodie, what is going on?'

'No time to explain,' she snapped, before she composed herself once more. It was her fault, she told herself; her's alone, and they could not atone for her sins. 'Look, when all this is over, I'll find you again. Alright? And I'll explain everything, I promise; just stay safe. OK?'

Too frightened to answer, they nodded.

'Go!' She cried, galvanising them into action, 'Get inside, now!'

Leaping from her feet, she hurried into her room, throwing a few essentials into the bag slung behind her door. A few crumpled paper notes; a photograph of the only real guardians that had watched over her in her youth; another image, this time one of six figures, huddled together before the vast expanse of the ocean, content with life. She paused over the latter, wondering if it was her's to take, before she placed it back on the desk. They had given her everything when they fought to survive, and she could not bring herself to take anymore.

It was then that the lights cut out, and Jodie realized that time was up.

The door gave way with a single exertion of effort, and through the darkness, she saw shades shifting into her home. Even in the dim light, their silhouettes betrayed them, and it did not take a second glance to tell Jodie that they were heavily armed, and searching for a fight. Somehow, Jodie doubted their orders involved a pair of handcuffs; with the amount of weaponry they were utilizing, a body bag seemed the only outcome in order.

With her back to a wall, Jodie was given little alternative but to oblige their wishes for a battle.

The broken door still swung loosely off it's hinges, but it provided the obstacle Jodie needed, as she sent her foot slamming into it's center. The sudden closure of the doorway was enough to send the rest of the unit hurtling back down the stairwell, as their lead man took the unrestrained blow of the swinging door unprepared, and tumbled backward, into his compatriots still advancing up the narrow stairway, leaving only two black clothed intruders within the apartment.

The lead man was still attempting to cover the corner from which Jodie had emerged from when she let a closed fist fly under the visor of the soldier's helmet, and collide with the soft cartilage in the man's nose. He howled in pain, blinded by the involuntary tears brought to one's eyes a tremendous trauma. It was all Jodie needed, as she stepped past the flailing rifle, kicked in the back of his leg, driving him to the ground, before she spun about, knocking the compressed rifle out of his partner's hands in his attempts to align the iron sights with the woman before him.

Before he could recover and draw his side arm, Jodie had launched herself at the second man, hammering a string of blows into the small cavity between the edge of the man's helmet, and the armored plate across his vest, until his eyes rolled over, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

Even as he did so, though, Jodie could already see, through the instinct built by Ryan's harsh regimes of training, the first man attempting to rise once again. She never gave him the opportunity, as she took two quick strides back across the room, unclipped the kevlar helmet from his chin, and promptly tore it off his head, only to swing it back down like a brick into the groaning man's skull. His knees buckled a final time, and he crashed onto the carpet, unmoving as blood continued to stream from his nose.

For a brief moment, Jodie simply stood there, dazed as the adrenaline flooded out of her system, leaving her like an invalid in the middle of a street, when the door caved in a final time.

Fury at their initial incompetence stealing his resolve, the third man threw himself past the opening without a weapon in his hands, as he spotted Jodie in the middle of the room, and promptly brought her to crashing to the ground in a savage tackle.

They struggled for a moment, hands locked about the other's neck, before the heavy set man finally rolled atop her, pinning her to the ground. In the same instant, his right hand hurtled downward, before it recoiled off her left temple, and repeated the onslaught twice more.

Jodie felt an immense pressure throbbing within her skull with each impact; felt the darkness tinge her sight, but such only burned the fire all the greater. She knew what would happen when they found Zoey.

Devoid of all strength, her left hand pushed upward, past the shower of blows that continued to land upon her face, until her fingers brushed past the cold rim of the helmet seated upon the soldier's head. Then, she grabbed the back of his neck, and pulled. Hard.

Instinctively, the agent released her pinned right hand as he sought to dislodge her own grip as he moved toward the ground, permitting Jodie to extend her right arm across her body, and arch it slightly, into an upturned V.

The cursing soldier did not see her presented elbow until it crashed into his eye socket.

Amid a half formed scream, he bit his tongue, sending a river of blood through his mouth even before Jodie released his head, only to punch him twice above the chin guard, and allowed him to fall aside, slumped upon the floor as he tried to free his throat from the bitter tide of red bile.

Nonetheless, he had put up a fair flight, and as she reeled from what was certain to be another concussion, Jodie Holmes could only watch as the last two men of the assault squad pulled themselves into the trampled apartment. Desperately, she tried to rise, but found her limbs devoid of strength, and burdened by the pulsing pain in her skull, she was left with little alternative but to return to nursing her bleeding head, as the two men spotted her amongst the shadows, and removed the safeties from their pistols.

Jodie was still trying to accept her failure when the click of triggers sounded like cannon fire in her pulsing head, and she awaited the inevitable.

A full second passed, and still she remained, trapped in a mortal form, and slowly, she lifted a palm off her left eye, to find both men switching incredulous looks between her, and their unresponsive weapons.

Evidently, Aiden was not yet willing to meet Jodie in person once again.

The reprieve was only short lived, however, as both men leapt forward, discarding the jammed weapons aside. One pulled her off the ground, only to introduce her head to a nearby wall, and her instinctive cry of agony was stilted by her sudden fall back onto the hardwood floor. Quite dissatisfied by the entire affair, the two remaining agents were hardly in a forgiving mood, as they dragged her back onto her feet, slugging her hard in the stomach, before one tired of the assignment, and simply kicked her in the chest, sending her hurtling backwards, through the door she had only moments earlier instructed her friends to take refuge behind.

The wood disintegrated, and Jodie crashed onto her back, cringing in defiance of the pain. Somewhere behind her, Tuesday screamed, and a little girl began to cry. Walter received a blow across the jaw as he tried to shield her, whilst Jimmy was pinned against the wall, as the fifth man gestured for him to move aside, having finally freed the submachine gun from the webbing across his chest.

Only to immediately hit the ground, as a sickening crack of metal thundering past flesh resounded throughout the apartment.

The final agent, who until his partner's fall had been advancing on Jodie with a short combat blade to complete the task at hand, had only begun to turn about to face the newcomer when Jodie's leg caught him in the back of the knee, driving him to the ground until he was knelt as if in prayer, before she pushed her left leg upwards in an arch, catching the lowered man's head with the top of her foot, sending him toppling over to the ground's embrace.

'Jesus Christ, Jodie, what the hell is going on?' The voice was enough to confirm Jodie's suspicions, but wounded as she was, Jodie was unable to find her own means to reply as Stan dropped the wrench from unsteady hands and rushed forward to check on her.

'Oh God,' Walter muttered, 'it's winter all over again.'

'Shut up, Walter,' snarled Jimmy, 'you're hardly helping.'

'Is she breathing?'

'I'm fine, Tuesday,' Jodie breathed, though it was a hollow exclamation none of them heard, and she was forced to repeat it, 'I'm fine.'

'Well you don't look fine, girl,' said Walter, 'who on earth were those guys?'

'People,' Jodie whispered with the slightest of grins, as Stan knelt beside her, trying to listen, 'people who knew how to fight.'

'Very funny Jodie,' Stan sighed, assessing the damage, 'goddamn it, we need something to stop this bleeding. Jimmy; can you...'

'I'm alright Stan. I got it, just...give me a second.'

'Jodie, are you mad?' By now, Stan was frantic, as the blood continued to seep from her forehead without pause, 'you're gonna go into shock...'

He never finished the exclamation, before his jaw, like every other in the room, dropped at the sight before them, as the opening in Jodie's forehead finished knitting itself up, leaving little trace other than the sea of red that had already escaped the incision.

'How?'

'Come on, Stan,' Jodie sighed, grimacing with the effort of sitting upright as her mind continued to pound in protest of her exertions, 'you saw your wife talk through me; I don't think this beats it by a long shot.'

'Fine,' the older man finally conceded, as he helped her to her feet, 'let's just get you out of here.'

'We? There's no 'we' anymore Stan, don't you get it? It's me they're after; it's because I was attached to Aiden. if you come with me, they'll hunt you down as well.'

'Well,' Stan began with a rueful grin, 'it's a little late now, isn't it? I mean, I think I'm already involved.'

He lifted his bloody hands, and Jodie realised with a grave sinking feeling that he was right. At best, he'd be charged as an accessory to a crime of 'self defense' that happened to leave five CIA field operatives hospitalised. At worst, he'd end up on the CIA's blacklist, and hunted like she was, following her desertion.

'We'll come as well,' Tuesday spoke up.

'Tuesday,' Jodie protested firmly, 'no. A life on the road is not something Zoey should have.'

'What's the alternative? You said it yourself; they're after you because of that entity. Sooner or later, they'll come for her as well. I'm not having my daughter live her days in a lab.'

_And I wouldn't have you share mom's fate,_ Jodie thought, though she kept the pessimism to herself. Tuesday was right regardless, whether she liked it or not. They had yet to start properly preparing Zoey for the future, and without Jodie, it would only spiral out of control, until the DPA took notice. And after that, it would be the same cycle once again.

'I'm coming too.'

'Walter...'

'You people wander off by yourselves,' the oldest occupant of the room spoke, 'and with the bad plans you have, you wouldn't last a week.'

'My life has been a fucking disaster since day one,' Jodie retaliated, 'and I'm still here.'

'Girl, I wasn't talking about you; it's Stan I'm worried about. And Zoey too.'

'What about me?'

'Tuesday, I never met a more level headed young woman like yourself; you'd do fine with or without me, missus.'

'Charmed,' Tuesday sighed, as the gentleman placed an open palm upon his chest in a mock display of his chivalry. Of course, though, that left Jimmy.

'Fuck it,' he suddenly declared, lifting his hands in the air in acceptance of the path he had chosen for himself, 'count me in.'

'Well,' Walter laughed, 'that's just one more reason you'll need me. Be watching over this one like a hawk.'

'School was boring enough anyway. You lot will need an extra set of hands; I can tell. And don't worry: I know how to look after myself.'

Stan gave him a cynical eye for that remark.

'What?'

'You're absolutely certain you ever stayed off the drugs?'

* * *

Not for the first time, Sergeant Calth Ambrose looked about the apartment, trying his utmost best to picture in his mind's eye what on earth had occurred barely an hour before he had arrived on the site. Responding to a noise complaint, he and his partner, Luther, had found themselves confronted by an armada of the CIA's clandestine operatives. They had barely made it off the street when they'd been cordoned to their car by a burly man in body armor, and for the better part of an hour, they had remained on the premises, waiting to gain entry.

It had not taken long; within the hour, the last vehicle had pulled out, although the many shielding bodies had not proven sufficient to prevent Ambrose from spotting a number of white gurney being wheeled too and fro to the apartment door; five to be exact, if he had counted correctly.

Now though, he was as lost as ever, as he surveyed the scene with his partner, whilst they awaited a federal forensics team. Not that they would likely find anything, he admitted; whatever the agency had found, it was clearly no longer on the site.

But there were still traces; signs the Agency had decided were not worthy of removing. The blood still clung to the carpet, and Ambrose did not need to fall back upon many years in the force to know a fight had taken place. The furniture was overturned, and two doors in the apartment had been broken down with vehement prejudice. A raid gone wrong? He could not discount the possibility, but it did not explain the absence of even a single bullet hole in the walls as far as the eye could see. And the indentations in the plaster were too large to have been from a blunt weapon; they were shallow, and wide, as if to match the person's body that had been thrown against it's structure.

'So,' he mused to himself, 'we have a fist fight, with at least five casualties, and no weapons discharge.'

'Gang fight?' Luther offered.

'If they were gangs,' Ambrose cut in, 'what are uniforms doing out here?'

'High profile raid? Cartel hub perhaps?'

'Maybe.' Ambrose did not truly hear the question, for another item had caught his eye; one he could not so easily dismiss. 'Who opens a damn window this high up in winter?'

'Come again?'

He gestured toward the opening in the wall, that continued to emit a keening wail as the wind filtered past, like the lost souls of that remained onward, watching over their own.

'Maybe CIA ain't so bright after all.' his partner shrugged, as he tucked his own hands into his pocket, trying to move into another room that was not as cold as the first, before he stopped cold.

In the gloom of the night, a large silhouette was hunched over a wooden desk, silently flipping through a patchwork book of pages as it continued to pay no heed to the newest visitors of it's abode.

'Hey, hey, you CIA?' No response came, and, caught off guard as he was, Luther drew his sidearm halfway out of the leather holster at his waist. 'Come on man, don't play games with me man. Lift up your hands, slowly, where I can see them.'

Another audible click, as Ambrose joined his side, arming his own pistol as he went. Still the shadow remained where it was, only moving it's hand the slightest distance across the wood to turn another page of the scrawlings, entirely oblivious to the presence of two gunmen at it's rear.

'Mr,' Ambrose tried, 'this is your last warning, now place your hands on your head, right now!'

The shade growled something indiscernible; something of a foreign tongue neither officer could identify, and they realigned their sights, this time solely upon the spectre's head.

Then, like a clap of thunder, the impasse was broken, as the spectre darted forward. A leg spun through the dim light, cutting aside both men's grips on their firearms in a single fluid motion. After that, any semblance of a 'fight' disintegrated, as the armored beast kicked Ambrose through the door, even as it snaked an arm about Luther's throat, depriving him of his lungs' desire until his bulging eyes rolled over and he hit the ground with limbs splayed out in odd angles. Ambrose himself was still attempting to regain his footing when he felt the presence towering over him, and, in a desperate play for survival, he threw out his left hand, hoping to catch his assailant off guard. The Warden's own hand simply lashed out, bypassing the flailing arm before it hooked itself about Ambrose's neck in a savage grip, before it dragged his head downward, into a risen knee.

The policeman slumped back before he even had time to cry out in pain, entirely unaware of the blood trailing down his broken nose as he was allowed to finally enter the embrace of unconsciousness.

Stooping low to run a clawed hand past the frail flesh, Venatus nodded in silent acknowledgement as he felt the continued pulse beneath the thin fabric that contained all that composed Calth Ambrose, leaving the Warden in solitude once more.

Not that Venatus would require it for much longer; though it helped in piecing the final moments at the site of some battle shrouded from common knowledge, Venatus could not help but find that the previous clean up team had in fact stripped the location of any and all useful leads. They had undoubtedly been thorough, as he had observed with his unit, hung from the edge of the building by the hard wire suspension cables each carried to supplement a vertical insertion, and any lead that was to found would now be in the CIA's hands. The initiative had never been on their side from the operation's very instigation; it was only a last minute interception of a communique between a field ops center and five now-hospitalised operatives that had convinced the Warden to assemble an investigation group, though he could not help but feel disappointed by the sore lack of any true leads left behind at the crime scene.

For a good many reasons, he was tempted to lose the remnants of his task force upon the armored convoy that had departed the site barely minutes before; an Omen could have easily dropped a trio of Hell Guardsmen atop the armored van whilst it was in transit, but the harsh truth was that he lacked any existing records on the hunted aboard the Outcast. So far, even her name had proven an annoyance to obtain, as he rechecked the single item he had pulled from the site, after having to dig through a series of rather loose floorboards; a rough collection of pages, handwritten in desperate scrawlings, signed by one Jodie Holmes.

As he stepped back out the window, and tugged his drop line, his mind continued to race, planning the next stage of an already problematic manhunt. The CIA's unwillingness to have their execution of an American citizen was already proving difficult to circumvent, as the surveillance blackout that had preceded the ill-fated raid had also thrown aside any hope of isolating the hunted before she made tracks into the desert sands. Though the Outcast's data tendrils were already linked into the CIA's own intelligence hubs, they had been unable to reactivate the cameras on their own initiative, for fear of an exposure of their own existence to the humans, and the fact that every digital piece of hardware was in fact already hijacked by a little strobe of light beyond the edge of the atmosphere.

'Find anything?'

'Not much, Caldus,' the Warden admitted, as he was hauled back aboard the graceful spectre of the skies, 'damn crews stripped the place clean before we could make an entry. Just this.'

'A book?' Even with the full faceplate adorned atop his head, Venatus could clearly make out the quizzical glance his second in command had thrown in his direction. Reading never had been the Veteran's strong suit, as he turned the manuscript over in his hands, or at least, the two limbs that a man would have recognised as the hand, for fact they felt the touch of metal, blood and flesh more than the ground.

'Even better; a story. By our prey.'

'Great,' Caldus sighed in mock amusement, as he tossed it back into Venatus' chest, 'maybe you can read me some to sleep later; might be enough to finally put me out of it for a change.'

Venatus returned the sarcasm with an equally withering gaze.

'You can sleep when you're dead, Guardsman.'


	3. Running

'Did we lose them?'

No reply came from the back, and so Stan repeated the question once more, much to Jimmy's ire.

'Did we lose them?'

'Jesus Christ, I don't know,' the former addict sighed, as he lowered himself back into the cargo enclosure, slumped in defeat, 'I don't know if you realise this, but I'm kind of new to this spy shit, alright?'

'It's alright,' Jodie interjected, placing both their driver and spotter at ease, 'it's clear.'

'Says who? Aiden?' Jodie nodded. 'Well why the Hell didn't you say that earlier, like before I spent half an hour...'

'Two minutes,' Walter cut in, clearly enjoying Jimmy's triade too much.

'...leaning out of the damn truck, holding on for dear life when you could have just said 'we're clear'? Eh?'

'Well,' Tuesday offered, 'it's entertaining for one.'

'Alright,' Stan put in, silencing the clamour, 'cut it out. We might as well stop here, otherwise I'm gonna fall asleep on the wheel.'

'You gonna fall asleep with all the ruckus that boy makes?'

'Well screw you too, Walter,' Jimmy spat without a hint of vehemence, as he stepped off the van, and landed feet first upon the snow. 'Where are we?'

'Who cares?' Stan said, 'as long as we're far away from the city, we should be alright. For now at least.'

Despite Stan's assertions, confidence was not found easily so soon after going on the run, and barely five minutes later, the group had loaded back into the truck once again, driving east along the beaten path. It was only after four shifts between drivers, a fuel stop, and the dawn's break that they finally came to a halt, beside a fairly sparse diner with a security net that quickly proved incompetent to halt the machinations of an entity. An unbound one, perhaps, but an entity nonetheless.

'I guess this is as good a place as any', Jodie decided, though she received little reply, for every other occupant of the truck had long since retired combat the onset of exhaustion. Gently, she nudged Tuesday awake, though in the same moment, her eyes could not help but be drawn to the little girl cradled in the young mother's arms. So small and frail, and their greatest hope for whatever would come to pass in the near future. It was the greatest injustice, Jodie knew. That fate would single her out to lead a life few others had ever tread; to lead a life none of her peers would ever understand.

But, Jodie hoped, at least this time, she wouldn't be alone.

Once they had awoken the men, who had spent the better part of the night in the back, the small group entered the diner, pushing past the plain glass doors, and attempting to maintain a degree of subtlety as they occupied a single booth that ran along the same wall that flanked the car park, leaving Jodie with sufficient warning if another car should pull up to the rather sparse location, whilst the glass window that sat on the same height as her own head provided an easy means to re enter the parking lot, should the need arise for a fast exfiltration. Nonetheless, the ragtag band drew more than a few conspicuous glances, for both the hour they had arrived at, and the fact one of their number had a torn rag filled with dripping snow tied across her forehead, slightly obstructing a hazel eye beneath it, and the bruises that surrounded it. But, as long as a green note was produced by the end of the day, curiosity could take a backseat, and the idle chatter that had previously occupied the staff resumed, though at a slightly lowered tone, in respect for the customer.

Jodie, though, only gave the attention passing notice. Confident in the knowledge that, at least for the time being, they had caught themselves a breather, she turned to the more pressing matter of her own conscience, as she leaned over to Stan's side, before she was interrupted by a more attentive member of staff, and prompted to take a frugal pick of the menu. It was only after they were left in peace and quiet once more that she was able to summon up the courage yet again to break the silence.

'Stan,' she whispered in the man's ear,, 'I think it would be best if I spoke to all of you. About my...past, that is. At the very least, I owe you all an explanation.'

'Only if you want to, Jodie,' Stan sighed, although she could sense the insincerity behind that remark. They all wanted to know what kind of grave they had dug for themselves, and Stan's comment had only proven a maintenance of the respect he had always given her and any other under his care.

Looking up, she could already tell the feeling was mutual amongst the tightly knit band of friends. Jimmy continued to fidget incessantly, occupying himself with a proffered fork laid upon the table, whilst Walter simply continued to eye the desert beyond, too obviously avoiding her eye in the hopes it would elicit a conversation. Meanwhile, Tuesday continued to hold Zoey in her arms, though her gaze unusually flickered too and fro, from her own, to the one who had delivered her baby into the harsh world.

'I, um, I owe you all an apology. For dragging you all into this,' Jodie tried, 'I'm really sorry; I never meant for any of this to happen. And I owe you all explanation.'

'A few weeks before Stan found me on the streets, I had worked with the CIA,' she began, trying to ignore their incredulous gazes, 'I was enlisted a few years back because of Aiden, and, well, it sort of spiraled out of control.'

'Did you kill people?'

'Jimmy...' Stan warned, but Jodie silenced him, forcing herself onwards, to retell the most shameful years of her life.

'Yes.'

'Well,' Walter put in unhelpfully, 'as long as they were bad people, right?'

'No.' The words clung to her throat, like an oil slick choking an ocean, but even once it was removed, she did not feel in the slightest absolved of her sins, for the damage had been done. 'Gemaal Sheik Charrief; they told me he was a warlord. That he was a tyrant stopping aid convoys into the country. So, we did it.'

'We?'

'Aiden possessed one of his lieutenants, and killed everyone in his entourage, but I told him to do it, so I guess the deed lies on both our hands now.'

'Well,' Walter said, in another attempt to console her, 'he doesn't sound like the nicest of fellas to begin with.'

'He wasn't a dictator,' Jodie protested, breaking the veneer of innocence Walter had offered her, 'he was the democratically elected president of the country! I only found out on the way back, and that's when I went on the run.'

'You ran?' Stan asked, 'from the Agency?'

'I told you, I was done being used by people.'

'Shit, so they're CIA? The bloody spooks are hunting you? How come now? Why wait all those years?'

'A while after I woke up from the coma,' Jodie continued, 'I went to find my mother. They had her committed to a damn asylum, and kept in a comatose state; destroyed her head with drugs.'

'God Almighty,' Walter breathed, 'you're serious?'

'They jumped me there as well: offered me a chance to earn a pardon, if I went off to Kazirstan to blow up a condenser: portal, to the otherworld, if you know what I mean; Aiden's world.'

They nodded in only partial understanding, as she continued, barely slowing now for she no longer feared judgement, and she chastised herself for even believing they would.

'Of course,' she laughed sardonically, 'it was just the CIA's way of making sure the technology was exclusive to the USA. I guess they didn't want another cold war, with us and the Chinese threatening to blow each other up each time one of us built another bomb. Anyway, it didn't do them an ounce of good; the CIA's condenser went tits up same as their first. Entities got through, and, well, you can guess what happened next.'

'Yeah, I can guess the bastards got what they deserved,' Stan spoke up, 'but then how are you still here?'

'We closed the condenser,' Jodie sighed, recalling the final moments of the man she had always seen as a father, until madness had driven him to become the herald of the apocalypse, 'and destroyed the damn thing in the process.'

'Yesterday, before I got off work, two agents approached me again. I guess they wanted a hand creating a new passage...give them some sort of consolation that it wouldn't blow up in their faces again like every other time...'

'And I guess you told them something they didn't want to hear.'

Jodie could only affirm Jimmy's suspicions. Even despite his past problems, the man certainly did not possess a broken fuse.

'I told them the truth,' she went on, that 'it's madness to open it up another Passage, but, well, who listens to someone who was branded a traitor at one point? Either way, I guess I know too much now.'

'Jesus Christ,' Stan emitted, trying to grasp the situation they had dived head first into without the slightest inkling of the water's depth, 'Bastards, all of them.'

'Doesn't change the fact they're bastards with a lot of tech on their side,' Jodie countered, 'look, the point is, we can't keep running without a plan. We do that, sooner or later, they will catch us. And I don't think a jail cell will do for them.'

'So,' Stan piped up, after a moment of silence, 'what is the plan? And you don't suggest we go running on you now; we're in this already.'

Jodie gave him a thin smile at that, as her eyes passed from face to face. She saw no doubt in those eyes; nervousness, perhaps, at leaving all they had achieved behind, but cowardice? Even little Zoey lay still in her mother's grasp, oblivious to the peril they were about to endure as one, and Jodie closed her mouth, the words upon her tongue already dying before they departed her throat.

_Maybe_, she thought idly, _if they were lucky, they might all be thrown in the same shallow grave together at the end of it all. _Nonetheless, she did not voice the assertion, for now, they looked to her for guidance, and she couldn't take that away.

Finally, she spoke up once more.

'We'll need a place to stay; somewhere that won't turn up on their radar, and will be hard to track easily. A safe house.'

'Do you know any safe houses?' They gazed at her through hopeful eyes, even as Jodie's face twisted into a slight grin.

'I know someone who could get us one.'

* * *

'Well,' Venatus declared, raising more than a few heads as he barged onto the command deck, hefting an archaic set of manuscripts in his armored hand, 'I've just been been in the mind of the unluckiest flesh heap on Earth. Form up.'

There was a shuffle, and the scrap of metal upon the ironclad deck, as the Seers and Veterans he had assembled aboard the _Herald_'s surveillance center shifted themselves about, to face the lone Warden as he strode up to the holographic screen at the far end of the otherwise featureless room. They could tell his distaste already; command briefings were a step too far away from the brotherhood forged under fire for the Warden in question, and all too often, they were 'modified' slightly to keep in line with Guardsmen he served under. Belonging to a regiment centuries older than he was, Venatus was nonetheless a respected Dracoii to follow, particularly given the fact that the forefathers of the Ninth had all but joined the Fallen at the Great Father's side. As a Warden though, he may have been respected, but the rank was not as distant as a Battlemaster so as to instil a iron clad chain in command amongst the Company. Much like a Lieutenant, he had trained and fought with his men in the field, and thusly, he had little need to maintain the formality others might have utilized in a bid to establish their own authority. Though friends, perhaps, the company still knew who gave the orders, and that was sufficient for Vigilus Venatus.

'This is our target,' he snapped, dragging a digitized image onto the wall behind him with a vague gesture that nonetheless was recognised by the display program at his back, that by now had long since adapted to the Warden's tendencies, 'Jodie Holmes. Stormcaller at delivery, and a walking disaster from points A to Z. She was tagged by the intelligence bureau; callsign CIA, as a pain-in-the-ass early on, when she choked a newborn in the street, and then later burned down a neighbour's house. Claims it was self defense and provoked, but that's besides the point. This lady,' he gestured at the image on the screen once more in articulation of his point, 'was dangerous from day one, and at her current stage in development, will likely have few qualms turning you inside out for a laugh.'

He gestured the projector onward, broadcasting another still upon the wall, though there was little to be gained from it's presence, since the subject's identity had been redacted by several marked lines of black ink across his face, as he lay motionless upon a gurney, in a neckbrace.

'One hour ago, Holmes apparently passed the boundary from being a headache, to being downright intolerable, and a coded order was sent for her capture, or if it failed, execution. That fella,' he waved at the screen, 'is just one of five operatives, after meeting Holmes.'

'Where did a citizen learn to fight?'

'Now,' he continued with the informal briefing, placating Caldus' curiosity, 'that's where things get interesting. According to her journal, she was enlisted by the CIA itself fairly early on, as a result of her...condition, for lack of a better term. Trained and turned into a weapon. Few infiltrations, cloak and daggers; all the standard Black Cloak shit.'

A new picture was up on the screen; the same one Jodie Holmes had been passed barely hours before an unmarked black hawk had departed Camp Lemonnier and headed across the Somali border. Of course, half of the data had in fact come from the CIA, after Venatus' Seers had finally cracked open some of the more secure data files within the vaults of the DPA, though work was slow, given the need to maintain their espionage without alerting the agency to their data outflow, and as a result, the main source of the Guard intelligence remained the hidden works of the very one they now hunted.

'Gemaal Sheik Charrief; his assassination was also her handiwork, though apparently, Holmes didn't like being used and defected soon afterwards. That was two years ago, and that's also the period the CIA doesn't have any data on, because for several months at least, she was a damn ghost, until she ended up in a hospital under a false name. The point is, according to her journal, her dark period is also the time in which she met some friends in the middle of nowhere; band of homeless under bridge, and a native homestead, in the desert. She was with the former group when the Agency broke down her door, so, we may assume she could be headed for the later. It's a good ways south west from her last sighted position; at least two days on the road, and in winter, they might be looking for a quicker way to get under the radar, but, it's still a plausible lead nonetheless. Halus?'

'Warden?'

'You have priority on the CHARON satellite. Cross reference her notes, find that homestead, and get a surveillance unit on it. She steps anywhere with three miles of it, I want to know.'

'Understood, Venatus.'

'Excellent. Next lead; Cole Freeman. DPA researcher, and essentially surrogate big brother, or maybe even father for Holmes. Got into a lot of trouble helping the target out on numerous occasions; broke her out of a DPA facility, and then later smuggled her into a secure military hospital, before he was wounded in action, during the Black Sun event: I take it you've all read the reports forwarded by Taurus' crew. If not, get on it. Point is, if she's looking to get any information on the DPA's progress, she'll head for him. Reius, Pharos. Your charge.'

Another pair of nods, nearly prompting Venatus onwards, before a single voice broke in through his thoughts.

'Venatus?'

'Yes, Draxus?'

'What makes you believe Holmes is looking to shut down the Black Sun program?'

'Her actions over the past few years,' Venatus returned, 'from her debriefing following the first outbreak at DPA Unit 16, right to the audio we ripped from the bookstore's security systems.'

As if on cue, an exact rendition of Jodie Holmes' voice echoed off the walls of the steel plated structure, drowning out the bumbling agent's professed attempts to maintain the peace after bringing up an apparent sore point with her entity.

'The awful truth though? I don't.' The Warden's skeptical admission raised a number of eyebrows, if all of the Guardsmen within in the room in fact possessed the said composition of the anatomy. Hell Guard truly came from all corners of the Council's known space, and as such, there were few colloquially recognised idioms to be used if one wished to appease the entirety of his audience. 'Her notes state clearly enough that she couldn't, and I quote, 'give a damn', for the CIA's work, and besides, Freeman's still attached to the DPA; he'll be under surveillance, and she knows it. But, on the off chance she decides to help the common good and take a few risks, then we need to cover all bases, do we not?'

The Veteran nodded in silent acknowledgement, his curiosity sated. For now, at least.

'The foster parents, we can almost forget about.' More images flooded the screen, and few indicated a content household. Though the Holmes were hardly to know it, the CIA had never truly let Jodie out of their sight, and there were enough cameras about to capture some of the girl's unfavored memories of home. As he surveyed the file in his palm though, Venatus bit his scaled lip in thought, before he conceded for caution's sake. It rarely did his men well to know that their work would be of unlikely value. 'Maybe the mother; divorced not long after they left the girl, now in two different apartments in the opposite sides of America. It could be problematic though, since she switched back to her maiden name. If the girl is thick enough to search up the Holmes household, she might just wind up on her father's doorstep nonetheless. Avus, put a loop on both residences, and report back if you catch anything.'

'Will be right on it,' the newest Seer half-groaned, much to the amusement of every other Seer present. The new blood was no fool. He'd do well in the future, the Warden thought with a slight grin, as he turned to the remaining Seers under his command, and with a single sweep of his hand, wiped the screen clean, only to replace it with a barrage of files. Most were redacted; blacked out by the colours of the night sky, save for a few, useless documents and photos that shed only the surface information on their final fishing line.

'Last but not least; Ryan Clayton. He and I got a lot in common, as you'll see. Sadly, his story ain't anywhere as interesting; no Makar, no blizzard, and no drop off an eighty foot cliff. Just clumsy enough to get himself caught.'

There was a murmur of amusement at that. Tales of Venatus' missing eye were common occurrences amongst the Second Company, let alone the Ninth Regiment itself, and yet, the full truth of the tale had never really been brought to light, thanks to Venatus' constant vauge retellings of the incident, disproving no theory entirely. All that had been known was the Warden had been found by a patrol at the foot of a nearly vertical cliff face, missing an eye, with the body of a fearsome Makar draped over him for warmth, and the tale had quickly grown into legend, often aided by a good drink of Narx until it had passed from unbelievable to the ludicrous.

Obviously, Venatus was not yet willing to put out the creative fire of his brothers.

'CIA operative, and direct commanding officer of Jodie Holmes while she was in service. Knows his work well, and had a...connection, with the target before Gemaal's assassination. Actually, she's the reason he ended up a one eyed git; joint operation went wrong. Regardless, he'd know whatever blind spots remain in the CIA's system: he'd know which safehouses are open for use, and above all, how to stay hidden.'

'You talk about it like the past tense,' another of his field commanders; Caulius, spoke up, 'what's the catch this time?'

'This.' Another moving image played into action, detailing a balding white haired individual with four stars on his vest screaming some indiscernible order at the man who had previously occupied the screen, before the one eyed man let a fist fly, striking the elderly man to the ground.

'That was General Donald McGrath; four star general heading the CIA's paranormal division. What you just watched was Ryan's...resignation, for lack of a better term.'

'Looks a damn sight better than ours,' Draxus laughed, 'unless they shot him after that?'

'No, he walked away, but without many strings attached. If Holmes goes after him, she'll probably hit a dead end. That's not to say she'll try though; their last meeting only detailed personal arrangements, and it's unlikely she'll know he can no longer guarantee that she'll stay a ghost. So, in all likelihood, he's our best bet. I want all remaining Seer teams on this, but no field operations with this man; we'll keep our distance with Clayton. Until then, Veterans, move your units to standby. We find Holmes, then we'll deal with Black Sun.'

There was a chorus of heavy set boots, as the Guardsmen filed back out the way they had come, leaving Venatus alone, fiddling with the journal he still hefted lightly in an armored hand.

_You had one horrible life, Holmes_, the Warden decided, weighing it in his palm like a competitor on the firing range before hurling the chosen explosive downrange. _And I don't envy you_.

With that, he gently set the assortment of paper back down onto the desk before him with infinite care, before he followed his brethren, and plunged the chamber back into darkness.

* * *

It was a Sunday, of all days. A time of rest if any was, and Ryan was abiding to that, despite his failure to attend any Church over the better part of his life, since he'd left home. Subsequently, he was understandably annoyed when the house phone began to ring incessantly in his ear, and, finally accepting that the caller would not be dissuaded from interrupting his day off, Ryan finally loosed the phone from it's hook, and placed it to his ear.

'For last time, Hix,' the former agent groaned, refusing to wait for an explanation, 'I told you, it's my day off, so call me tomorrow...'

'Ryan?' That voice certainly did not belong to a burly man who could not take a hint, and Ryan took a moment to infact verify if he had not somehow fallen asleep. 'Ryan, is that you?'

'Jodie?'

'Ryan, I'm really sorry to burst in like this, but I need your help. Can you meet up?'

'What?' Ryan was still trying to catch up with the sudden turn of events, before he caught his tongue, silencing instinct. 'Alright, where are you?'

'Can't say.' The sharp retort was all he needed to confirm it was still the girl he had turned into a weapon, and despite himself, it succeeded in eliciting a glimmer of a smile, despite the memories that came with it. 'Where are you staying right now?'

'Charleston,' Ryan sighed, 'it's a house on the suburbs...'

'I'll see you tomorrow,' the voice on the other end cut him off, 'Nine o'clock; we'll see you there...'

'Hang on, 'we'?'

'I'm with a couple of friends,' Jodie conceded, 'and CIA's coming for me again. I'm sorry, Ryan, I really don't know where else to go; we need to stay low until I figure something out.'

'Alright, alright: how many with you?'

'Counting me, six.'

'Ok Jodie, call me once you're here, okay?'

'Take care, Ryan.'

The phone clicked off, and for a few moments, Ryan remained where he sat, unmoving, as his head tried to make sense of what had just transpired. It had definitely moved too fast for him to refuse her outright. Not that he would have, he vehemently asserted, would he?

Until then, he had yet to process the fact Jodie had mentioned trouble once again with the Agency, and it was enough to give Ryan the slightest of pauses. He had been with the CIA long enough to know that if they willed it, Jodie would end up in a tin of dog food within a week. No one could hide for long, especially if they ran in a group. Six? Even with an entity on her side, a clean escape from the Agency bordered on the impossible. And if she was running in a group, she might as well have done the Agency the final favor of nailing the lid of the confin down for her burial.

For all he knew, Jodie Holmes was already dead.

But reason did not endure for long, as he picked up the phone once more, whilst he opened up his end table with the other, reaching into the sliding drawer to produce a battered handbook, daubed in black ink. If anything, Jodie had been dealt a horrible hand from her very first day in existence, and yet, somehow, she had persevered. She had survived Mogadishu, the denizens of the Infraworld, and the CIA before, and thusly, it was only logical that Ryan would felt obliged to aid her in defying the odds, one last time.

Or at least, that was what he told himself, as he dialed in the number, and heard the ringtone come to an end.

'Nick?' he asked, in the same tone of professionalism that had seen him through the years of wet work, 'I need a favor.'

After all, it would be unfitting for a former operative to admit to the crime of emotion.

* * *

As she replaced the pay phone's receiver back into it's holster, Jodie felt her head swim as another growl drifted through her mind. It was not even a sound, for her ears registered nothing; it was as if the very source of the ethereal reprimand emitted directly from within her own skull, leaving her in no short degree of frustration as she was even robbed of a direction to face her opponent when an argument with the entity in question arose.

'Yes, Aiden,' she conceded, 'I know he screwed us before, but I ain't got much of a choice right, do I?'

Another unintelligible rumble, though it proved little barrier, for Jodie understood perfectly her twin brother's thoughts, and subsequently, she hated him for his perception.

'It's nothing like that,' she protested, swatting at the air in annoyance, 'Cole's a good guy, but, really, I don't think he can make us disappear, let alone half a dozen of us.'

She liked his next piece of advice even less.

'You did not just suggest that,' Jodie spat, spinning about amid her triade, and absence of a visible tormentor, 'I'm not just abandoning them on the side of the road! What the hell do you take me for? No, it would not be safer for me; how the fuck would it?'

She knew the answer to her question even before Aiden had a chance to crystallize her thoughts, but she had put her foot down on the matter long ago, when they had fled as one.

'Look, it's for the best; we'll be out of sight, and ideally, we'll have somewhere to hunker down until we can figure out what to do next, okay?'

If he had existed, she could have sworn he was providing her with glazed eyes. Truth be told, Jodie herself had to defy her own instinct to rationalise her choice.

'There wasn't anything between us,' she snapped, only partly in address to Aiden, 'like I said; it wasn't strong enough.'

The spirit seemed to shrug it's shoulders, if a hovering ball of light in her head could ever perform such a feat, and abandoned her side.

'Hey, Jodie?' Stan's voice piped up from the far side of the car park, cutting through the wind's roar, 'you get what you need? It's getting a bit chilly over here.'

Smiling, she waved his concern aside, putting those fears to rest as she clambered back aboard the pickup. Zoey was huddled in as many layers of clothing her guardians could spare, and currently, it was Jimmy who held her tight to his chest within the passenger's seat, whilst an equally frigid Stan wound the window back up, and reignited the engine. It had taken a rather heated argument with Tuesday in order to finally convince the company that Zoey would be able to handle the road trip without her continued presence, but eventually, the redhaired mother had triumphed against the odds. Needless to say, it was an unspoken guarantee amongst the friends that the infant would hold the closest point to the vehicle's heater, but Tuesday, although bound to her duties as a mother, was not the kind to allow others to suffer in her stead on the premises of her parenthood, and after a night of comparative comfort with her daughter, whilst the other members of the company exchanged shifts in the wind blasted enclosure upon the pickup's rear, Tuesday had seen enough.

Despite adamant resistance however, there was little hiding the fact that any such protest amongst the friends was token at best; no one with a functioning head would have refused even the slightest reprieve from the biting cold, and, perhaps inwardly, they were secretly pleased that Tuesday had so vehemently fought for the notion's passage, though no one had doubted it would invariably come to pass. They had been bound together long enough for trust to take hold, and like a stubborn weed, it's roots grew deep, and strong.

'So where are we headed?' Stan asked, leaning over the back of his seat as he Walter helped to pull the former agent back aboard.

'Charleston,' Jodie replied, fighting off the running sensation that tinged the edges of her nasal cavity as she did so in the wake of the weather, 'South Carolina.'

'That's not exactly close,' Walter commented, 'but it's do-able.'

'Charleston, Charleston,' Stan muttered to himself, as he consulted the road map they had pulled from a gas station early on in their plight, whilst Jodie had extracted the rather generous funds left for her by her former employers, in compensation for her ordeal under a frozen ocean. Truth be told, the assets of Elizabeth North had been frozen the moment McGrath had ordered her termination, but with the help of a rather uncompromising entity, Jodie had managed convinced a seemingly petrified ATM to hand over the promised funds. After all, it was not like she was stealing; rather, she was simply reclaiming what had been owed to her by her hunters.

'It shouldn't be too far if we take Route 77,' Jodie put in, knocking the intervening glass gently to obtain their present driver's attention, 'we'll be there by nightfall.'

'Route 77?' Stan quickly traced a fingertip along the creased paper, before he isolated the bloated line, snaking South along the continent. 'Alright, I got it.'

'You know the roads pretty well for someone who drives like a drunk,' Jimmy put in from the front, before he earned a sharp rebuke from Walter, though Jodie hardly took offense at the remark. Driving never had been her strong suit; even in Mogadishu, Aiden had proven a more capable, albeit reckless, driver than she ever had, and Stan had jokingly made it a law for Jodie to maintain her distance from his hard earned pick up; a law he had promptly forgotten when the panic of leaving behind all one knew set in.

'CIA taught me a few things,' she laughed, recalling another assignment, and another near death experience, 'Ryan and I once had to track a cartel shipment cross country. Easier said than done.'

'I'm just gonna assume he drove,' Stan joined in, before he depressed the accelerator, and jolted the truck onwards, leaving behind the desolate phone booth, an empty car park, and five non-functional traffic cameras amid the rolling storm of winter's breath.

Within fifteen minutes, the site would be flooded by a half dozen vehicles, whilst formation of heavily armed uniforms, bearing the resolute eagle of the Agency upon the breast of each man, patrolled the condemned site, searching for a lead.

But by that time, of course, Jodie Holmes was long gone.


	4. The Road South

The command deck was quiet; peaceful, even, as the Seers silently interfaced with their consoles; their minds and work a single entity through the bio-panels they utilized. Once their worn hands had entered the two spaces below a terminal's platform, they ceased to be mortal, existing only in a cloud of binary data, in which time lost all meaning. No click of keyboards penetrated the veil of silence; only the subtle hum of energy, punctuated every so often with a groan, emitted from the throat of a Seer as they continued to pulse their presence through the data space, their eyes rolled to the backs of their skulls as lay ignorant of their surroundings, only caring for the digital world they inhabited.

They did not even respond when the disconnection alert sounded; a quiet, subdued blare at a low pitch, accompanied by the discordant whine of a power supply being disconnected, as if the engine it supplied was in protest of the cancellation, pleading like any newborn for a few more moments, before the inevitable fell, and exhaustion took over, delivering the console to the other side, in slumber, until the time for it to be woken came again.

The Seer attached to it fared little better, as he stumbled back from the restraints, grasping at the support cage that enclosed his workspace for support, before he straightened himself upright, and pushed aside the iron bar that served as the sole barrier to the data point, oblivious to the stream of red fluid flowing freely from a single nostril. Scipius' condition was hardly the first case of Data Blindness Venatus had seen, and it most certainly would not be the last, he observed. An unsavory side effect from too much time plugged into a data point, immersed in the binary world, it nonetheless had it's benefits, as it was one of the few battle wounds that could see a Guardsman discharged, to end his life in even a small degree of peace. Scipius, as one of the oldest serving Seers aboard the station, was no different, and Venatus had told himself, that after this assignment, the Warden would be sending the young Guardsman home. He had saved enough lives to deserve the small mercy.

'Venatus,' the winded Seer reported, marching smartly up to the Warden's post as he did so, masking the disorientation of having returned to his body, 'we have something. Audio communication between Holmes and Clayton just popped up on the grid; she used a payphone.'

'We have the location?'

'Yes, and so did CIA. They're already on site, but they haven't secured her. Place is dead.'

Venatus only bit his lip in quiet understanding, as he turned to the holographic map of the landscape below him, watching as Scipius marked the position with a single extended digit, leaving a red smear of light across the otherwise blue display.

'That was her position fifteen minutes ago,' the Seer continued, 'far west, out of New York. Right now, we can only presume she's headed south, to link up with Clayton.'

'What's the fastest route south?'

'Route 77,' the Seer interjected, placing another marker with a single sweep of a gloved hand, 'but the time frame doesn't match up.'

'Explain?'

'She stated in her audio file that she would meet with him in twenty four hours. Given they're a fairly large group, and they can keep rotating drivers, it should only take twelve.'

'Is she accounting to lose us on back trails?'

'In all likelihood, yes. Human intelligence seems to be thinking the same thing; I'm seeing heavy chatter on classified channels to erect roadblocks on nearly every game trail in a fair radius, and they've pulled aerial assets to assist.'

'I see,' the Warden nodded, though the tone lacked any respect for the operatives struggling through the snow below as his lips twisted into a sadistic smile. 'won't do them much good though. She should already be out of the net.'

* * *

Though hunting down human beings was the innate specialisation of the CIA, the matter was, as Venatus predicted, complicated by a great deal when the hunted had access to a spirit lacking both a moral compass, and a tether to it's paired soul. The rolling snowstorm storm only hampered visibility further, and with their own, metaphorically speaking, at least, eye in the sky, Jodie's small band of fugitives passed through the web with meticulous ease, gunning the truck hard down the main road where it was least expected, before taking a cross country detour to avoid a single patrol car dispatched along the main road. Once the coast was clear, however, the trip down south was smooth, if not uneventful after an adrenaline fueled first evening, and by nightfall, they had long since turned off the 77 onto Route 22, when a siren blared on their flank.

'Aw, shit,' Stan cursed, spotting the flickering lights on their tail, 'aw, shit, we're blown.'

'It's alright, Stan,' Jodie cautioned, fighting down the growing knot of panic in her gut, 'pull over, right now.'

'Pull over?' Jimmy nearly exploded, 'you've got to be shitting me! The second we pull over, they're gonna bust our asses!'

'I hate to say it,' Walter added, 'but he's right; just floor it Stan! We gotta bug out right the hell now!'

'Stan!' Another voice overtook him, tinged by an uncompromising steel of experience, 'stop the truck right now, otherwise they're gonna put out an alert, and then we'll really be in the shit!'

'God, fuck it!' They did not get much more warning, before everyone in the cargo compartment was thrown forwards as Stan hit the brakes, hard.

Jodie felt her head rebound off the rear windscreen, like a tee under the weight of a golf club swung at full speed, before Walter promptly followed suit, crashing into her side, and trapping Jodie back against the steel hide. He was hardly thanked for the endeavor, as Jodie recoiled in shock, letting an obscenity slip past unguarded lips before the apologetic man could remove himself from contact with her still badly bruised forehead. Jimmy, on the other hand, let loose a barrage of curses in Stan's direction, as he pulled himself back into the vehicle, clasping his head in agony, though it did not seem sufficient to stem the incomprehensible tide of unforgiving words until an authoritative shout cut them all off.

'Jesus, I'm sorry Jodie, I just...'

'It's alright Walter,' the cringing woman sighed, as she picked herself off the ground, 'no, I'm sorry; it wasn't anything. It's fine.'

'It is definitely not fucking fine,' Jimmy hissed out of the corner of his mouth; oddly, he seemed to be illuminated in the dark, as if someone had cut his likeness from the day and inserted him into an hour past the sun's fall, 'I hope you know what the hell you're doing, Jodie.'

With a sinking feeling, Jodie realised it was in fact a headlamp that had pinned Jimmy against the night's sky, although he continued to look into the light, cringing as the light's glare threatened to blind him in the dark, but continuing to abide nonetheless, raising his arms until they were nocked at a ninety degree angles, and his forearms were perpendicular to the ground below them.

Likely in at least some part thanks to the two silhouettes that were advancing on them, with their arms extended outwards, as if both figures were about to perform a high dive, having already interlocked their fingers at shoulder level, though unlike swimmers, they had yet take that plunge toward the ground. And although Jodie had not spent much time treading water, she had learned enough to know that swimmers did not often perform their craft whilst carrying 9mm Glock 17s.

'Step away from the vehicle,' one man commanded, gesturing slightly with both wrists, and the metallic barrel that bound them together amid uncertainty.

'Do as he says,' Jodie instructed quietly, 'right now. Come on.'

Nervously, quite unsure of what on earth had possessed Jodie to convince herself of such a course of action, they filed out of the vehicle in short order, crushing the cold snow underfoot as they dismounted, keeping their hands in clear sight.

It did not seem to put the men in uniform at ease, as they advanced, one leaning over to make his report through the mic piece on his shoulder before he nodded subconsciously, and resumed approaching the suspects with absolute caution.

At the same time though, Jodie remained quiet, as her mind raced, searching for a way out. It would have done little good to inform the others of her condition, for few were placed at comfort in the knowledge that no plan was available to enact an escape, whilst she doubted the officers themselves would not have comforted by any means to know she was in fact searching for a plan. So for the moment at least, she remained quiet, as she allowed herself to turn about, placing her hands upon the pickup's side, until the chilled breath of the shuddering men had ceased it's amplification with the loss of distance between them.

Then, and only then, did she commit.

'Freeze!' the shout came, as the snow was beaten from the foliage on the truck's side by an unseen force, sending the patrolmen into paranoia as they searched for the fleeing assailant.

In the same moment, Jodie let Ryan's drills take over.

Her right foot stamped backwards, cannoning into the officer furthest from Aiden's distraction, and sending him reeling into the ground amid a stream of curses directed at both the fugitive before him, and in part, his own carelessness for the endeavor.

Jodie was glad to provide the said man with the kicker for the latter of his shortcoming, as she rounded about, placing a single palm upon the barrel of the second officer's firearm, before she drove it downwards, until it was aimed into the snow bank at their feet.

The pistol discharged once, flashing like a distant star amid the winter gale, before Jodie threw her left arm back whilst it's counterpart continued to hold on, striking the man cleanly in the chin with the uncompromising edge of her elbow in the jaw. He bit off a muffled shriek, before she curled the bent arm downwards like a constrictor, locking about the bone beneath the man's trigger shoulder. In the same motion, she released the pistol, only to strike him in the bridge of the nose twice more. With the officer's pistol hand trapped like a scarecrow's limbs; parallel to the ground under the threat of a fracture, Jodie shuffled forward, forcing him to follow the turn until she had interposed him between her own form, and his scrambling partner in the mire.

Then, plucking the pistol from the bleary eyed man's grasp, Jodie pulled the single notch in on the pistol's hide across her sight, before depressing the trigger a single time.

The cop let out a sudden yelp as the bullet tore his own sidearm apart as it sat in the snow, unmoving until the lead round ripped through the outer casing, before it severed the firing pin at the base, sending the loosened pipe forward one last time.

A another brilliant flash of light marked the death throves of pistol, in it's final act of defiance before it lay dead on the field, with a 9 millimeter hole embedded at the top of the pistol's grip, leaving the poor individual defenseless in the face of the fugitive.

Without giving it much thought, Jodie promptly slammed the butt of the pistol into her hostage's chin, disabling him as a threat, and also sending him plummeting to the ground with a concussion in the same act, before she pulled the firearm upright once more, and gestured for the remaining patrolman to rise.

'Listen,' he half pleaded, 'let's just calm down and...'

'Report back in,' she snapped, then, seeing his inability to understand the command, she elaborated. 'Call your station, and tell them you just pulled over a speeding truck; nothing more, and nothing less. You try and place an eleven-nine-nine, or whatever distress code you want, and I'll fire. Do you understand? Don't bullshit me, or we'll all regret it.'

He stuttered momentarily, before the threat of a premature end quickly convinced him otherwise, and he leaned over, tucking his head low into the vest as he reached for the mic.

'Station?' he mouthed, barely audible, before he looked up into Jodie's eyes once more, and, seeing no madness in her eyes; only the calm collective nature of someone who would not hesitate to pull the trigger, he quickly adverted his gaze once more. 'Cancel the 6AD; false alarm. Just a 510.'

The operator on the far end seemed to be pleased with that explanation, and for once, the standard protocols of law enforcement failed to earn the officer's ire for their length; rather, it had concluded too quickly, and left him at the mercy of a perpetrator yet again. He cursed the operator for that; cursed the injustice of the threads of fate, while in truth, the exchange was no different from the average conversation with the station; shortened only by the immediate need for procrastination, and thusly altered perspective of time; a vain hope to off hold the inevitable outcome whereby he had finally exhausted his usefulness to the criminal.

Jodie, however, would quickly disappoint the officer's fears. She was many things; a strange girl who could talk to the dead, a trained operative, and the most dangerous woman on the American continent, let alone of the world, but a murderer?

She had only committed the crime once, she told herself, and she would never repeat it once more.

'I'm sorry about this.'

The apology was lost on the officer, however, as she covered the ground that separated them like a thunderbolt, before she had stepped past his lowered form, and wrapped an arm about his neck. She felt the man squirm about in her grasp, clawing at her with the resolve of desperation, until his movements slowed to the pace of a slug, and then failed entirely, as he slumped over in her arms, unmoving, save the mist of rapidly condensing air that escaped his lips at fairly regular intervals.

Only sparing a moment to check her surroundings, ensuring no additional backup was en route despite her certainty in the responder codes, Jodie quickly signaled Stan over, as she tucked her arms beneath the unconscious man's arms, dragging him back to the cruiser that remained sunken into the snow that had fallen only moments earlier. Quickly realising Stan was still motionless, having failed to bear witness to the full battle at the apartment, Jodie fought down the impulse to indicate any sign of displeasure at his petrification as she moved to handle the second officer.

She would bear the weight of her choices, as would they all when the time came. Such was not to say she enjoyed such; for all she knew, the CIA could all go to hell, and thusly, she had relatively fewer qualms about the employment of lethal force if there truly was no other option in the event it was the Agency that came after her. But it was difficult to isolate where others fell; the police, the army; where did the individual end, and the organisation begin? For all she knew, the men would have known no better; their minds elluded by her pursuers, and perhaps, they had a home to return to. The normal life that had been stripped from her at birth, and for that, she could not bring herself to remove another.

It never occurred to her that the same could have applied to the clandestine organisation itself; the one that even now would undoubtedly be hunting her along the interstate, desperate for either the lynchpin of their efforts, or the termination of their gravest threat. She could only assume each man had been assigned to the same calibre of crimes she had been, with the exception, that unlike her, they had passed unscathed, bereft of their conscience.

The assessment was of course an inaccurate stereotypical analysis one, and she knew it, but it was a lie that had kept her sanity intact for the time she had run, leaving a trail of collateral damage from Washington to Arizona, and depositing over forty uniforms in mourges across the nation.

But for now at least, she could tell herself that the Agency had failed to change her, as she placed the last man in the containment enclosure, typically utilized for any suspects the patrol picked up. Finally locating the keys, she promptly alleviated the pair of the belonging, before she engaged the locks on the vehicle. She was nearly about to depart when the cold winter gust snapped her attention back to the policed officers, and for good measure, she twisted the key already in the ignition, before she flipped the heater on, and promptly slammed the door shut.

Kindly act or not though, she had long overstayed her welcome, as she stepped back towards the pick up.

The others had already rejoined it's cold embrace, though they remained in unbearable silence. It was only natural, she guessed. The enthusiasm and blind loyalty that had empowered their initial surge to step into her shallow grave at her side was beginning to fade, as the reality of the run began to seep into their conscious minds.

She wasn't quite sure which was worse; an act of fate alone that had forced her upon this path, regardless of her choice, or the conscious decision to abandon all one had achieved, to accompany a friend, to realise that the journey would only lead to the end.

Quietly, she placed a gloved hand upon the pickup, before the bite of the cold repelled her touch, and she quickly snatched it aside, holding it close to her chest, where the frozen metal had clawed at her palms even through the thin wool.

Gritting her teeth in resolve, she advanced once more, only to be halted by a shadow cast over her quivering form. A hand pierced through the darkness, and muttering her thanks, Jodie seized the offer gratefully, clambering aboard before she settled down for the long night, as she felt the pickup roll out from underneath her, content once more.

Whatever the consequence, she managed to consider, before fatigue took her sight, it would be an end they faced together.

* * *

The next day, at dawn, Ryan Clayton exited his apartment, opened car in the driveway, and loaded a black duffle bag into the trunk, before speeding off down the ice tracked roads. He did not go far before he turned off down to a nearby parking lot that was easily within walking distance, before he stepped outside to a nearby bench, upon which he subsequently took a seat upon.

He remained there for a full minute; his hands in his pockets as he attempted to remain warm whilst he supposedly tried his best to admire the rising sun to the east, until another lone figure approached him from down the pathway. They exchanged a few, nondescript words, before the newcomer took a seat and they spoke in idle tones, conversing, until it was decided their conversation had run it's course.

But as the second figure stood to rise, Ryan's hand abruptly rose, in an apparent attempt to clear the cold fluid that was threatening to stream from his nose. In actuality, the glove was emptied in the same motion, depositing the curled hand's contents into the coat pocket of his partner.

Moments later, and the innocuous little exchange had degenerated into a town square, as brigades of officers; some decking 'borrowed' riot gear from the Special Weapons and Tactics division, whilst others remained in their civilian covers, stormed the street out of the morning darkness, pinning Ryan to the ground before he had even a moment to offer a token protest of his innocence in the entire affair.

His accomplice, however, was not as forgiving, as the hooded figure was pulled to ground in it's attempt to flee amid a stream of curses, but most of all, confusion.

Two hours later, Ryan Clayton and Marshal Hicks were both released without charge, after the pendrive in question found in the latter's pocket was found to be bereft of any possible interest, save for a few work related articles, over which an incredulous Clayton had threatened a lawsuit on the account of corporate espionage in regards to the exposure of 'sensitive' documents, whilst an equally bewildered Hicks was in turn treated for light bruises and a twisted limb amidst confusion of his identity as a wanted fugitive, listed only by the Agency as 'Holmes'.

That evening, Ryan's tumultuous relationship with his boss would near it's summit, although never the argument never quite approached the summit he had once reached with his past employer; a self righteous little bastard by the name of McGrath. Thankfully, his new boss was none too bright either, and an indignant triade at the very notion of suspicion on his part in their joint arrest proved sufficient to buy him another day.

As it had brought her another.

On the far side of America, a similar instance had unfolded; a high ranking station deputy was unceremoniously arrested and pulled into the black box following a call to his address from the same Clayton in question regarding the Charleston affair, and the unrecorded nature of the conversation.

Unlike Ryan, Nick did not get off so easily, and it would only be nearing the end of his first week in detention before he stumbled out of his containment cell, with the old trusts of his colleagues cementing their report of his innocence.

The same however, could not be said for a third agent, who had disappeared the same day; reassigned south east, with only the particularly vague objective of 'observation and documentation' on a supposed criminal activity, without the viability of support.

* * *

It was midday when the familiar face finally alleviated Jodie's concerns. She had left the five friends in an alleyway three streets across, before she had made her way over to the pre arranged destination, ordering a hot coffee that was only tepid when it finally touched her lips, though in no part due to improper service.

'Jesus, Jodie,' Vince sighed, as he pulled up a seat, 'it's been too long.'

'Vince? How...how's it been?'

'Ryan sends his apologies,' the agent quickly affirmed, spotting her confusion from a long way off, 'it was too dangerous for him to come. Agency's got eyes everywhere.'

'Right,' Jodie muttered, no longer truly comprehending his words, 'right.'

She could not conceal the disappointment lurking beneath her voice: after the entirety of a night to dwell on her choice to turn to the old spook, and countless discarded rehearsals of the undoubtedly uncomfortable reunion, it seemed a rather anticlimactic end to the entire endeavor, but she bit back on the discomfort as best she could. After all, she told herself, she was not confronted by a stranger; Vince had played his fair part in turning her into something deadlier than the monster they had plucked from Nathan's lab, and when she had made her peace with the world, he had been one of two to drag her back to the land of the living, back into the warmth of a living hell.

'So,' she tried again awkwardly, 'how's, things been in the Agency?'

Vince scowled at that, and Jodie bit her lip in regret, wondering just how much further she could actively destroy the situation before she curbed the unworthy thought, in the knowledge that contemplation of such would only ensure it's certainty in the very near future.

'You must have made quite a few waves, Jodie,' the bald man sighed, as he pulled his hands off the table, cursing quietly at the cold. That brought back memories, Jodie recalled; despite his bulk and appearance, Vince was easily the least suited of the four man team that had entered Kazirstan; a place that clearly did not agree with his intolerance to the frost amid it's snowcapped conditions. Her subdued recollection did not go unnoticed however, and Vince raised an eyebrow in question, immediately stripping Jodie of any emotion as she moved to cover the error too late.

'Something funny?'

'Just glad we're not back in Kazirstan.'

His eyes flickered in recognition, and a tight grin, but a grin nonetheless, was allowed upon Vince's features.

'Should have taught you some bladder control in basic,' he returned without pause, 'you didn't, leave anything out there, did you? Frostbite's a nasty business.'

Jodie scoffed at the remark, even as Vince placed his palms back upon the table. Somewhere, the male determination to prove one's resilience to the most ludicrous extremes had triggered in his head, at the thought of his inability to cope with the cold, and it would only be when either Jodie signalled for their departure, or when the last blackened finger had detached itself from it's equally charred hand that he would finally conceed to the temptation of warmth.

Thankfully for Vince, Jodie was not willing to push his pride to such an extreme. For today, at least, she admitted quietly to Aiden's persistence to his own perception of her thoughts.

'Seriously though, Jodie,' he continued, lowering his head as he did so, 'what did you do? The Agency's got you on every watchlist they can get their hands on. You ask me, you need to go low, and stay low for a long time.'

'Well,' the young woman said, draining the last dregs of her cup in a single fluid motion before she continued onward, 'then what are we still doing here?'

* * *

'Alright,' Venatus sighed, as the Seer stepped to his desk, 'give me something, Scipius.'

'CIA just grabbed Ryan.' The Seer had begun to wipe an offending trickle of blood, before he decided the act could wait, and he continued, stood to attention whilst he drowned in his own life fluid. 'Nothing conclusive; met a work acquaintance and slipped him a data drive without any relevance to the hunt.'

'So he's no longer a lead?'

'Possible, but there's more. Clayton made an encrypted communique with an old contact; now station deputy of a CIA station north west. He was also Holmes' trainer during her training in the CIA.'

'So disassociation?'

'Yep. Couple that with the data anomaly in the phone call between Holmes and Clayton, and I can assure you they'll be trying to link up.'

'Who's the bridge?'

'Him.' The Seer had more to say, but the nasal congestion had proven much for a continuance, and he thusly turned to the side whilst he diverted all effort to the delayed impediment, leaving Venatus to study the photograph on his table in the meanwhile. With a balding head, and the traces of an unattended follicle growth beneath the mouth, he looked the average killer, staring into the photographer with a gaze that should have convinced the man otherwise than to stay put whilst the shutter completed its cycle.

'Vincent,' Scipius finally completed, having discharged his airways, 'though I can only assume it's an operational alias. No record of a first name since his entry into the Agency's Field operations, and not an awful lot left to go on. A few operations here and there; basic shit, before assigned to Camp Peary's specialized training division.'

'Didn't Holmes' journal mention a Vince?'

'That's what I thought too,' the Seer confirmed, 'the point is; he's our man. We find him, we'll find Holmes. The only problem is their rendezvous; Holmes didn't mention a location in her communique, and if she's on the run, she'll be operating from public nodes, meaning until she does, we'll be in the dark.'

'Wait a minute,' Venatus snapped, checking the chronometer on his desk, 'she said nine hundred hours, didn't she?'

'Maybe,' the Seer allowed, 'or twenty one hundred; she wasn't tremendously specific...'

He got no further, before Venatus cut him off with a barrage of his own directions.

'Cross check Holmes' message for any codes; any irregularities in data, any odd words, right now! We've got a clear break, Scipius, so use it! Wake up your friends, and take them all offline. Redirect all your efforts onto this: I want that meet ASAP, Guardsman. You got that?'

'Where...' Scipius began, his voice already a receding echo in the distance as Venatus marched for the exit, 'where are you headed, Warden?'

'Assembling a hunting party, Seer. Now give them a target. We'll await your word.'


End file.
